Monday, April 06, 2015

South Africa's Election Dot Density Map

A couple of year's ago Adrian Frith created a racial dot density map of South Africa. He has now created a dot density map of the 2014 South African general election. The Election Dot Density Map 2014 contains one dot for every South African voter. The dots on the map are colored by the political party voted for and placed randomly within the voting district.

It is really interesting comparing Adrian Frith's two dot density maps to observe how closely voting for the different South African political parties correlates with racial distribution. Adrian's Mapping South Africa with Dot Distribution map shows racial distribution across South Africa and also the first languages spoken, based on data from the 2011 South African census.

In Johannesburg (voting distribution pictured at the top - racial distribution above) you can see a clear correlation between the racial distribution and the political parties most supported in voting districts. Soweto stands out on the racial distribution map as an area populated almost exclusively by black Africans. In 2014 the district showed overwhelming support for the ANC.

Comparing the two maps also reveals that the districts with the highest white populations tended to show the most support for the Democratic Alliance.

A similar pattern can be seen in Capetown. The districts with an almost exclusively black African population had by far the most ANC voters. The Democratic Alliance was most popular in districts with the highest white population and also seemed to do well in voting districts with a large mixed race population.